This is my favorite place to play with rare computers

The Verge

The annual Vintage Computer Festival East at the InfoAge Science and History Museum showcases rare and functional vintage hardware, from 60's Navy computers to minidisc players to Macs and beyond. The Verge's Andru Marino explores why getting together to preserve and understand vintage computing is worth a trip out of the city.

Transcript

00:00I'm here at the Vintage Computer Federation's East Coast Festival at the InfoAge Science and

00:09History Museums to check out a bunch of vintage hardware, not just on display, but currently in

00:15working order. From printers to keyboards to telephones to big desktops, here's the rarest,

00:21weirdest, and oldest vintage computers we found this weekend. This is my fourth time attending

00:26the event so I wanted to bring the video crew to share why getting your hands on some vintage

00:31computers is worth the trip. Located on a former army base, the InfoAge Science and History Museum

00:41in Wall Township, New Jersey, uses the Vintage Computer Festival as a way to spread the hobby

00:46of understanding old technology and the best way to do that is to see them working. One of the

00:52things about our museum was it's hands-on. If you go to the Smithsonian, everything's locked away.

00:57You can't touch it. I think it's also educational because then they can learn the fundamentals of

01:01how computers work, how programming work, in a very simple way. So I think it's a deeper

01:07understanding with the vintage computers than they are with modern computers. Festival goers are free

01:12to explore the vintage computer exhibit with their ticket to experience hardware, operating systems,

01:17early coding, and various peripherals designed over the past few decades.

01:22All right, my wagon is loading. This must be the beginning of the game because I just got Oxen.

01:35This museum right here has technology that you can only find literally right here. There's like only one

01:42left in the world and like the live demos they do in just this community it feels really good because

01:46it's primarily such a highly digital community. One of the rarest computers here is the UNIVAC 1219B,

01:53a military mainframe from the mid-60s designed for radar and weapons on navy battleships. I don't know

02:00if any are still in existence and if they are I don't think any of them are running. So that's one machine

02:07that's very unique that you wouldn't see anywhere else. Another thing is a Nova Chord. So it's electronic

02:13piano from 1939. You could probably spend all day in this one room just learning how to operate this

02:21stuff. The Apple Lisa. The first Apple computer with a graphical user interface. We did a whole

02:27documentary about this. I just love this little screen on like the way it's set up. Look at this mouse

02:33here. One big button. The real highlight of the festival is the exhibit rooms. Here's where hobbyists,

02:40professionals, and educators set up shop to share with attendees their projects they're working on.

02:46The common theme here is really keeping this stuff alive.

03:02Some attendees come from out of state not just to see the equipment but to meet the hobbyists they see

03:08online. Anything here you're excited to see? So there's this guy DOS dude. He always does really

03:13cool modifications to Macs and he had a bunch of really old iPhones he was trying to get working.

03:18He made a fake cellular network. Networks that no longer exist like 2G and stuff like that.

03:23So the iPhones here start with the original iPhone go all the way up to the iPhone 5S and then over

03:28here we have some other miscellaneous phones including the original Android phone the HTC Dream.

03:33These two antennas here are for my custom GSM base station that I've got set up here

03:38using a BladeRF X40 which I've got right here. It's an SDR or software defined radio and that's

03:44hooked up to a computer down here running a piece of software called Yate BTS which sort of drives this

03:51whole thing. The number for each phone is printed on this sheet here. So let's say we'll just dial the Nokia

03:5730 through 95 so that's 1012. Okay. You can just go in here. Dial 1012.

04:13All right and then we got that one to work. I can't believe what I'm seeing right here. This whole table

04:19all mini disc players and mini discs of all different models. This is very rare and beautiful

04:25machines. This is your personal collection? This is my personal collection. Do you have any favorites?

04:31Uh this one my first. Oh I have this one. Yeah. Okay. 56 hours. Yeah. On one battery. This is the actual

04:38one that uh was doing all the traveling with me worldwide. Nice. This had over 100 hours with this

04:44battery sidecar. Oh no way. Yeah so the gum stick went in there. Right. That was an extended battery. Yeah and then the

04:51AA went there and you had over 100 hours here. I love this purple one. That's beautiful. Yeah that

04:57that one was very popular and a hard to find color. The reason why this one was so popular is it was a

05:04cost reduced version. Yeah. Of a recorder and it was a worldwide model because it took AA's. Right.

05:11A lot of exhibitors are also putting personal touches to old hardware or upgrading pieces of equipment

05:18for a more modern taste. Oh there you go. It's an actual port of Minecraft. Yeah. Oh wow. As you can

05:25imagine there's a lot of mix and matching of various keyboard technology. You swapped out all the

05:30keyboards from these machines? Well on this machine it was notoriously poor at the keyboard so we built a

05:38brand new circuit board with cherry style keys with backlighting and that's all I replaced. Otherwise

05:44this is all original. This feels pretty good. There you go. Keeping some of these vintage electronics

05:53alive sometimes means 3D printing parts that no longer exist. This is uh an apple color plotter 410.

06:02This is a pretty rare piece. Apple did not sell a lot of these. Yeah. So you 3D printed some of the

06:08parts for this. Right. So there are a lot of consumables. There's a pen holder and then there are pens.

06:15The new old stock pens. That's a pen that I 3D printed. You can't get the pens anymore. Right. And

06:22the pen holders are very fragile because 40 year old ABS plastic. So really that's what's the first kind of

06:30project when I got it. It was getting it to the point where we had the consumables and where we had

06:38the pen holder so that I could you know actually use it. There's a lot more digging I get to do now

06:44that I have working. Yeah.

06:50This is a very cool part that I always look forward to is the consignment shop. People just come and bring

06:55stuff they want to sell. Other people come and buy a bunch of stuff. Vintage electronics. Vintage computers.

07:02People are already walking out with stuff. It's 9 30 in the morning and it is packed already. So let's

07:10go inside and do some window shopping.

07:18So portable TV from Quasar. Only ten dollars here. Macintosh Plus. This is the same PC I used to make

07:25like Audacity recordings on. Look at this. This has a whole stand for this iMac G4. It's got these

07:32speakers here. These little stands for the speakers. I just love the screen like the flowerpot thing.

07:39$350. Look at a bunch of mini discs. $20. I think I think I'm gonna get these honestly. Still taped on

07:47the top of this TV is all the channels from when this TV was being used. The consignment shop gets bigger

07:53and bigger every year. This is a huge space. I'm surprised how much stuff they have this year. Look at

07:59the Hot Wheels PC. It's even got the steering wheel and the pedals. This little CD case. Oh, look at all

08:06these Mavis Beacon. All the Hot Wheels games. Wow. Whoa, this works.

08:14Is that a Windows CE thing?

08:16Yeah, this is a Windows CE thing. Where are you coming from? Uh, Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

08:23Oh, cool. All the way up there. I, uh, I've been doing vintage computing all my life, uh, since I was a

08:27Wii lad of 14. I mostly do weird Japanese stuff like that. I used to do robots for the longest time.

08:34I basically kept a bunch of wilting, dying robot dogs from the 2000s from exploding.

08:40Aibo? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I have a bunch of them. Me too? Yeah, uh, I don't really use them.

08:47This is what I love about attending this show. It's a space where you run into all sorts of

08:51enthusiasts who get you excited about this whole world of old computers. Even at the consignment

08:57shop, it rarely ever feels commercial, like how conventions can feel. After four years of attending

09:03the festival, I noticed it's attracting more and more crowds from all ages. Jeff Brace, the showrunner,

09:10says the attendance tripled in size last year. Mostly it's, it's, it's people that are nostalgic.

09:16They either grew up with the computers or they did them at work. Younger people, my impression is they

09:22like them because they're simpler. They can actually get hands on. They always heard about these people

09:27and they want to meet them in person or they always wanted to own this computer and maybe they want to

09:32go to consignment and buy one or they want to see one that's working and the exhibitors just love to

09:36show it off. It's like a show and tell. Here at The Verge, we're always looking at the fastest,

09:41the latest, the brightest new things and coming to an event like this makes you appreciate how we got

09:47here. So if you ever get the chance to play around with some old tech like this, I highly recommend it.

09:55Thanks so much for watching. You can go on www.theverge.com. I've been learning so much today,

10:01but you know what? I have not learned as much as I do every day on www.theverge.com. So tap in.

10:09Tap in everybody. That's our new slogan.

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